So how about that food blogging?

f you've been paying any attention, food--in general, and recipes specifically--has lately taken a back seat on this blog. Not just a back seat, but one of those third-row-backward-facing seats that the little kids like to wave from on family vacations. Yes, way back there. As Brian Regan says, those kids are on a whole different vacation from the rest of the family riding up front.

But I digress. I digress a lot. And that's the problem, of late. Well, not so much a problem, but more of an explanation. Obviously I'm cooking. Obviously we're eating. And sometimes it's even interesting. (A lot of the time it's fair to middlin' on the interest spectrum, honestly.) But the space between cooking-eating-taking a picture-blogging has seemed vast... like slogging through mud.

Part of that vast mud slogging distance is my little obsession with the crafty side of life--if I'm not in my applique infatuation haze, I'm crocheting or calligraphying or thinking about it or researching it online. My food feeds get a breeze through, an occasional "star" to come back and look at later, and there they sit.

Another factor is the between-seasons menu blahs... I'm tired of soups and stews and winter eating (yet that's still what the weather seems to call for and what the grocery store still has to offer for ingredients) and while I'm ready for all things fresh and green and spring-like, the locally available ingredients are taking a minute or two to show up...

Sigh.

But at least I'm finally acknowledging my slacker-ness, right? That's the first step. The second step, for me, is to get my inspiration back on track... spend some time looking at new recipes, new menu ideas, new ingredients, and get my cooking mojo back. I found a recipe book yesterday that lit a little fire in me--Super Natural Every Day by Heidi Swanson. It is that just-right combination of interesting and creative healthy recipes and beautiful photographs that gets me going. (In my humble opinion, if you're not willing to have photographs in your cookbook, don't bother publishing.) I have already pegged a number of recipes to try in the next few weeks, and am looking forward to playing around with:
* Chickpea wraps
* Kale salad
* White beans and cabbage (a salad)
* Little quinoa patties (I have been wanting to experiment with quinoa)
* Oatcakes (looks like a good breakfast alternative)

101 Cookbooks was involved in previewing the cookbook, and offers a six-recipe sampler on their site, so that is worth checking out if you're not sure if you want the cookbook (you do, really you do!).

I admit, looking at that recipe list, it looks a little healthy. Lest you think I have completely left my sweet-and-fat tooth behind, I was also most happy to see this beautiful cheesecake recipe yesterday:

Doesn't that just scream SPRING?!

Stay tuned, Sweet Tea and Sunshine will return to it's roots of "a little food, a little gratitude." Gratitude is great and all that, but a girl's gotta eat, right?!